Human Rights Committee’s Chair’s Letter

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Human Rights Committee’s Chair’s Letter

HRC: What can the UN do to ensure transparency in the apparel industry?

Protecting the rights of workers throughout supply chains and guaranteeing labor law compliance in factories.

Distinguished Delegates

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the upcoming PuszMUN 2019. My name is Maciej Kisielewicz and together with my co-chair Jan Nowakowski we will be moderating your discussions regarding the apparel industry.

The topic at hand should be very close to our hearts, after all, it is about the people who make things we wear every day. Workers who sew our clothes are respectable human beings and should be treated as such, and the problem is, that is not always the case. The discrimination in workplaces stresses workers into suicide and such. What you must seek during those three days of PuszMUN is solutions to those problems. The situation now is that we know how big of an impact our clothing has on people, it is a $2,5600 trillion industry. How much, though, do we really about the process during which our clothes are made? What are they really made of? Who are the suppliers of these raw materials? Is a “made in China” tag enough? This is why we need transparency in the apparel industry, the XXI century slave may just be a factory worker.

What I think we should be focusing on is improving their workplace environment, we can do that by strengthening the existing laws and creating new ones; imposing stricter penalties; doing unannounced check-ups on factories. There is an arsenal of ways to deal with the problem of transparency in the apparel industry, and it is your duty to choose a way that fits your country policy the best.

I wish you all the best in the quest of writing your resolutions. I hope you will work hard to make the MUN an enjoyable experience. I count on your creativity.